Fleet commonality - 4th fleet type

[Andre]

I've just finished phasing out my MD-90s, and I wanted to share the differences in fleet commonality costs with you. Costs more than halved across the board by just removing the last remaining 4th fleet type MD-90 from its schedule. The difference is huge:

[Zombie Slayer]

This is, IMHO, the biggest problem currently facing AWS. You only have a few dozen planes there. The effect increases exponentially as your fleet size increases. I recently phased out F100's in MT7 with a fleet of ~450 planes. The cost savings was over 500% (not a typo) and I have seen the savings as high as 1200% for fleets approaching 1000 frames.

Economics of scale should mean our cost per plane decreases as fleet size increases. Obviously, more fleet types = more staff required, more training, more spare part inventory, and more space to store those spare parts, but I would bet my left nut it does not increase costs by hundreds of percent for, say, Delta to stock parts for DC-9's, MD-80's, 717's, MD-90's, 737's, 747's, 757's, 767's, 777's, A32X's, A330's and the various RJ's their partners fly.

Just saying....there is a cost associated with extra fleet types, but not this kind of cost IRL.

Don

[Mr.HP]

IMO, this is actually a tool to limit the capacity of big airlines. How is it possible to compete/beat a multi-billion dollar airline if the bigger they are, the more efficient they are? Small airlines will then have little/no chance at all

There are many factors IRL which drive those big boys to BKed, and those factors can't be implemented in AWS for one or another reason. Thus, we have fleet commonality

HP

[Zombie Slayer]

That does make sense, and there SHOULD be a penalty for too many fleet types, my point was more that the "penalty" should be more evenly distributed rather than a big hit at 4 types, then another big hit at 7 types, etc. There should be a "bonus," so to speak, for a single type, and each subsequent type should have an increasing impact on commonality costs. Now, once you operate a fleet type, the cost of operating that type should DECREASE on a per plane basis with each added frame, as that is real life economics of scale, but more types should = more cost, just not the the massive and exponential hit the 4th type adds.

Don

[Mr.HP]

You've got a point there. But I think it's ok the way it is for no penalty until 4th fleet. This to provide a buffer for A/C transition, as well as some protection for new airlines who grow fast, and tend to get a few fleet types. From 4th fleet, every additional fleet should have triggered extra penalty

[Curse]

3rd fleet generates a penalty, but not this crazy. 2nd fleet is basically free.

[Sanabas]

2nd & 3rd fleet generate an increase. 2 fleets is always double the cost of 1 fleet, roughly. 3rd fleet not quite so large. 4th fleet is an exponentially scaling penalty. At 50 planes, 4th fleet doesn't add much. At 240 planes it more or less doubles your total cost. 700+ planes and it is truly ridiculous. 5th & 6th barely change a thing, 7 is another huge increase, though I've never tested if it changes % with size.

If you want to build a very large airline, you are almost compelled to stick to 3 fleets only.

Where it will be a really big problem is in a longer gameworld. If you have 800 planes in 3 fleets, and the gameworld is long enough that you need to replace one or more (say 350 727s need to become 350 a320s), that means your fleet commonality costs are going to be more than 6 times what they normally are for the duration of the changeover. And that changeover is going to last 2-3 years at an absolute minimum.

[Andre]

I wanted to switch to A320, not because MD-90 is a bad aircraft.. it's pretty good, but so that I could merge my MD-90 and B717 fleets into one. But when I realize that it took 6 years with double commonality costs, plus billions of dollars in new planes and the expenses of selling old ones at 10 million below market price.. I don't know if it's worth it. I had 3 fleets before I started introducing A320.

[Maarten Otto]

It's all about tactics. Make the good choices and you can have 20.000 aircraft with 3 fleet types or 200 aircraft with 6 fleet types... guess which company pays more per aircraft.

[swiftus27]

4th has traditionally been the big jump for many versions of this sim.  Personally, I like it.  It prevents players from spamming MD80/MD90/A320/737 Classic/737NG all at once.

[Zombie Slayer]

This may be a good to bring up my idea of "partial commonality" which I cant seem to find in the feature request forum at this time.

Basically, "like" types would carry less of a penalty than "different" types. So, you start in DOTM with DC-9's and then order MD-80's, the DC-9/MD-80 combination may count as 1.1 types, which would be saying 90% of the components, including pilot training, ground ops training, mx training, parts, etc, are common between the types. Same could go for the 737 fleet, 747 fleet, DC-10/MD-11, MD-80/MD-90, and I am sure other fleet groups I am missing. When 4 is hit, the penalty happens. This would also breed manufacturer loyalty as it would be cheaper to replace a MD-80 with a MD-90 than with a 737 (although a MD-90 may have partial commonality with IAE powered A320's, so replacing MD-90's with A320's might only add .9 to the commonality.)

Make sense?

Don

[swiftus27]

This may be a good to bring up my idea of "partial commonality" which I cant seem to find in the feature request forum at this time.

Basically, "like" types would carry less of a penalty than "different" types. So, you start in DOTM with DC-9's and then order MD-80's, the DC-9/MD-80 combination may count as 1.1 types, which would be saying 90% of the components, including pilot training, ground ops training, mx training, parts, etc, are common between the types. Same could go for the 737 fleet, 747 fleet, DC-10/MD-11, MD-80/MD-90, and I am sure other fleet groups I am missing. When 4 is hit, the penalty happens. This would also breed manufacturer loyalty as it would be cheaper to replace a MD-80 with a MD-90 than with a 737 (although a MD-90 may have partial commonality with IAE powered A320's, so replacing MD-90's with A320's might only add .9 to the commonality.)

Make sense?

Don

Boo hiss my 'Commonality Points' idea came first. ...  I think...

[Zombie Slayer]

It did, and I had forgotten about that feature request but I do remember reading it now. Something does need to give with fleet replacement. Even if it is just not counting a fleet type as long as the number of the type exiting the fleet is in a constant state of decline.

Don

[swiftus27]

It did, and I had forgotten about that feature request but I do remember reading it now. Something does need to give with fleet replacement. Even if it is just not counting a fleet type as long as the number of the type exiting the fleet is in a constant state of decline.

Don

Not only does it solve this issue but it prevents airlines from doing the big airplane blitz where you get every plane type that does LH and then scale it back to 2-3 fleets by the mid game fuel crunch. 

RUN ON SENTENCE!

[brique]

Perhaps a fleet type could be designated as 'retiring' ; then, as each is replaced, it is deemed 'grounded' and can not be re-sheduled, leaving the only option being disposal : the benefit being a proportionate decrease in the commonality penalty for the group : in real life, an airline retiring a fleet would be running down parts, type-specific facilities, training, etc.

[Aerlingus1916]

If ANYONE offers you a goat say NO!!!
I was taught a lesson......

[brique]

If ANYONE offers you a goat say NO!!!
I was taught a lesson......

admit it, you want a goat... badly... and I just happen to have a few, reasonable prices, only slightly used... Crazy Eddie recommends Doris as a good starter goat, for the less experienced in goat-matters...

[Aerlingus1916]

Hahaha 
Ill take doris